Tough journey from homelessness to hope

Updated 10:51 pm, Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Volunteer Jason Scutt, left, places a stuffed moose in the baby carriage of Nia Holmes, 2, of Albany on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Blessingdale's thrift shop in Albany, N.Y. Scutt was trying to appease the child who wanted a baby doll. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Volunteer Jason Scutt, left, places a stuffed moose in the baby...

Jason Scutt, left, relaxes in the dormitory on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany, N.Y. Scutt, a homeless man, will be getting his own apartment. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Jason Scutt, left, relaxes in the dormitory on Tuesday, April 23,...

Volunteers Jason Scutt, left, and Tim Messer sort through donations on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Blessingdale's thrift shop in Albany, N.Y. Scutt, a homeless man who lives at Capital City Rescue Mission, will be getting his own apartment. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Jason Scutt, who stutters, struggles to get out his words on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Blessingdale's thrift shop in Albany, N.Y. Scutt, a homeless man who works at Blessingdale's and lives at Capital City Rescue Mission, will be getting his own apartment. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Jason Scutt, who stutters, struggles to get out his words on...

Jason Scutt, center, carries a bag from the pile of donations on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Blessingdale's thrift shop in Albany, N.Y. Scutt, a homeless man who volunteers at Blessingdale's and lives at Capital City Rescue Mission, will be getting his own apartment. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Jason Scutt, center, carries a bag from the pile of donations on...

Jason Scutt relaxes in the dormitory on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany, N.Y. Scutt, a homeless man, will be getting his own apartment. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Jason Scutt relaxes in the dormitory on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at...

Jason Scutt, center, talks with the kitchen staff during lunch on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany, N.Y. Scutt, a homeless man, will be getting his own apartment. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Jason Scutt, center, talks with the kitchen staff during lunch on...

Jason Scutt, center, joins other shelter residents for lunch on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany, N.Y. Scutt, a homeless man, will be getting his own apartment. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Jason Scutt, center, joins other shelter residents for lunch on...

Jason Scutt, left, talks with Antone Hills, right, and Richard Gladwin during lunch on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany, N.Y. Scutt, a homeless man, will be getting his own apartment. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

A string of rotten luck left Jason Scutt, a maintenance worker and 34-year-old father of two from Stillwater, homeless.

His mother's death by a heart attack, an electrical fire that destroyed his house and a flare-up of his biopolar disorder set him on a bumpy road that ended in the parking lot of the Greyhound bus station.

"I had no cash, no food, just the clothes on my back," Scutt said. He shivered through two cold nights last fall, barely sleeping, curled on the asphalt beside a light stanchion, wary of the night denizens of the South End.

"It was cold and scary," he said, struggling to finish the sentence. His words get all bottled up.

He's had a severe stutter since he was 5. He tried various programs and treatments, but nothing cured his stammer. High school kids were the worst.

"They called me retarded," he said. "From the time I got to school to the time I left, they picked on me. It gave me a hard shell."

Maintenance work suited him. He didn't have to talk much. He didn't mind mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms. He worked as a cleaner at the McDonald's in Mechanicville. One day, a smart-mouthed teenager started in on him, hurling the kind of taunts he'd usually managed to ignore. A black rage welled up inside him. "Something just snapped," he said. He felt like he blacked out. When he came to, a police officer was handcuffing him. Scutt was convicted of second-degree assault and spent a year in jail. He learned a hard lesson.

"When people pick on me now, I just walk away," he said.

After the bad stretch that sent the twice-divorced man over the edge, he wound up in the psychiatric unit of St. Mary's Hospital in Troy. Lithium helped smooth out his manic mood swings. After a month, he was discharged. But he had nowhere to go. The Homeless and Travelers Aid Society referred him to the Capital City Rescue Mission. He chose the Greyhound parking lot instead.

"I had a lot of pride," he said. "Stupid move."

For the past eight months, Scutt has lived at the mission's homeless shelter on South Pearl Street. More than 7,000 people have spent a night or more there over the past three years. Scutt sleeps on the top bunk in the corner of a dormitory. He takes deliveries and sorts donated clothing at Blessingdale's, the mission's thrift shop. He starts at 7 a.m. and works for eight hours, even though he only gets paid for five. He then goes to his second job, working maintenance at the Times Union Center.

"We love Jason. He has a good heart," Tim Messer said. Messer stayed at the mission for six months in 2006 and now lives in an Albany apartment, aided by a monthly disability check. He volunteers at Blessingdale's in gratitude to a place that helped him get back on his feet. He can relate to Scutt's hard journey.

So can Paul Bailey, who got laid off from his job at Office Max in 2008. He couldn't find work, ran through his savings, got evicted and slept two nights in his Ford Taurus in the parking lot of the Capital Hills Golf Course before turning to the mission. He has worked the past four years as a paid supervisor at Blessingdale's and lives in an apartment nearby. He thinks Scutt will be another success story.

"He's well-liked, he's a self-starter and he works hard," Bailey said.

If all goes as planned, Scutt will leave the shelter next month and move into a two-bedroom apartment in Albany's Pine Hills.

He'll be able to have his two sons, Jason, 10, and Tommy, 9, stay with him regularly. Right now, he takes a bus to see them on Saturdays at an ex-wife's house in Latham.

His boys have kept him going through what Scutt calls "a lot of hurt." When they call him, they say, "You're our hero, Dad."

Scutt said he will finally feel like the hero his sons believe he is when he gets the keys to his new apartment.

"I'm going to be the happiest man alive," he said. "I'll cry a lot that day."